Imagine—science was right: the Big One hits the West Coast, decimating Victoria. Anarchy rules. Most of the population is buried alive or burned in the inferno from ruptured gas lines; no organized aid groups or military arrive to unearth survivors or dispose of bodies. A tilting Empress Hotel is the last vestige of civility as media vultures hover seeking “prey” to amuse a missing—dead?—audience. Bloodlust reigns, and an animal survival instinct. Such is the post-apocalyptic vision of Victoria poet Steven Price’s speculative first novel, Into That Darkness.
Exploiting an imminent what-if, the book, published eerily on the heels of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, pits an urgent certainty against the randomness of such events in the Earth’s natural history. Science figures largely in Price’s narrative, although his dog-eat-dog Mad Max world is no farfetched sci-fi invention but...
Carol Bruneau is the Halifax-based author of two collections of short stories and three novels, the most recent of which is Glass voices. She teaches writing at NSCAD University.
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